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Greeks Line Up for Money and Stock Up on Goods as Cash Rationing Starts Greeks Line Up for Money and Stock Up on Goods as Cash Rationing Starts
(about 7 hours later)
ATHENS — On Monday, the first day of official cash rationing throughout Greece, Maria Delaporta, a concierge in a modest apartment building not far from the Athens Hilton, rushed to the supermarket. After spending 18 euros on staples — milk, sugar and rice — she found herself with 50 euros, or about $55.90, in her pocket. ATHENS — Uncertain what might happen next, with banks and financial markets closed, across Athens people wasted little time Monday, rushing to the nearest A.T.M. to withdraw their new daily maximum of 60 euros, determined to raise every last cent while they could.
Like most of her neighbors, she had no way of getting more cash until Tuesday, when her next allotment of €60 would be due. She had begun Monday with an extra €8 on hand. Yet, even as Greeks faced a new level of chaos and hardship this week, they were being confronted with another unsolvable riddle: a vote on their future that was even more uncertain than the current chaos.
A siege mentality began taking hold in Athens as capital controls began and the country lurched toward a referendum next Sunday that could decide whether Greece stays in the eurozone. People were emptying supermarket shelves, filling up containers at gas stations and lining up at automated teller machines for their daily cash allowance, hoping that the supply of hard cash would not run out before it was their turn. “Simply put, we’re confused,” Eleni Gardikioti, 31, an insurance worker, said. “We don’t understand what games they are playing, whether to stay or go and whether there is a permanent goal in all that.”
To cut out one daily expense, the government was allowing people to ride the Metro, buses and trolleys for free this week. There were good arguments on each side, she said, as she fished out a coin to give to a beggar.
Stocking up on staples was a priority for Mrs. Delaporta, 73, because one of her sons, in his 50s and laid off from his insurance job, would come by soon to get his daily container of food from her. In a referendum on Sunday, Greeks will be asked to decide whether to accept a take-it-or-leave-it bailout offer by the country’s creditors, and remain mired in austerity in the eurozone, or reject the deal but suffer the consequences of leaving the euro.
Her husband, Evangelos, a retired commercial air conditioning and heating worker, was waiting for his €860 monthly pension, already cut from €1,200. With banks closed because of the financial crisis, the government had promised to announce a list of locations where pensions would be distributed later in the day. He was keeping a sharp eye on the news as he waited for word. The question is not as simple as it might sound. For one, the bailout offer has already been withdrawn by the eurozone’s finance ministers, so it is not clear the parties could reach a deal now even if Greece voted in favor.
“My grandmother used to say, ‘We are born rich and we die poor,’ ” Mrs. Delaporta said. It seemed to her, she said, as if she had experienced that cycle of life and death in just the last few days. Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras clouded the matter further on Monday by saying a vote against the deal would not necessarily mean abandoning the euro, but rather would give him leverage to negotiate a better agreement with Greece’s creditors — other European Union nations, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank.
The referendum is to allow the Greek people to give their opinion on a final bailout offer by the country’s creditors. It is a confusing situation for many Greeks, since the eurozone’s finance ministers have effectively withdrawn the offer and rejected a request from Athens for an extension of an existing bailout agreement that expires Tuesday night. Anecdotally, how people said they would vote in the referendum had little to do with those considerations, but broke down largely along lines of age and class. Older and more affluent Greeks leaned toward voting yes and younger and poorer Greeks with leaned toward no, essentially as a protest of what they viewed as foreign oppression.
But most Greeks see the coming vote as boiling down to one of two options: a “yes” to remaining in the European Union and on the euro, as well as to accepting further pension cuts and tax increases as bailout conditions; or a “no” that would give Greece more control over its destiny, but at the possible cost of leaving the euro and enduring deeper economic pain in the short run. Whatever the outcome, Athenians were busy adapting to the new reality on Monday, focusing more on getting through the week than worrying too far into the future. People were emptying supermarket shelves, filling up containers at gas stations and lining up at automated teller machines, hoping that the supply of hard cash would not run out before it was their turn.
Over the last few weeks, Greeks have withdrawn billions of euros from the banking system, leading to the capital controls. Athenians everywhere wore looks of anxiety, despite a pleasantly cool summer day. Over the last few weeks, Greeks have withdrawn billions of euros from the banking system, leading to capital controls. On Monday, customers found many cash machines shut down until noon to be reprogrammed with the new limit. For hours after the machines began operating again, people stood in line, waiting to receive their rations of cash.
Athenians everywhere wore looks of anxiety, despite a pleasantly cool summer day. Customers found many cash machines shut down until noon to be reprogrammed with the new limit. For hours after the machines began operating again, people stood in line, waiting to receive their rations of cash. Withdrawals were capped at €60 a day under a plan, announced Sunday night by Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, that closed the banks and the stock market.
How to vote in the referendum was confusing to many, because the message they were hearing from Mr. Tsipras was that a no vote would not mean abandoning the euro, but rather would give him leverage to negotiate a better deal with Greece’s creditors: other European Union nations, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank.
For some, the word “no,” or “Oxi” in Greek, has a historical symbolism that makes it even more appealing in the present context. As every Greek schoolchild knows, the annual Oxi Day commemorates the answer, in spirit if not verbatim, delivered by Prime Minister Ioannis Metaxas to a demand from Mussolini to allow Italian forces to occupy strategic parts of Greece at the beginning of World War II.
How people said they would vote in the referendum seemed to break down largely along lines of age and class, with older and more affluent Greeks leaning toward voting yes and younger and poorer Greeks leaning toward no, essentially as a protest vote against what they viewed as foreign oppression.
Standing outside the cash machines seemed to have a counterintuitive effect on some people, hardening them against the European creditors rather than making them angry at their own government.Standing outside the cash machines seemed to have a counterintuitive effect on some people, hardening them against the European creditors rather than making them angry at their own government.
“We’re all happy with Tsipras!” said Eleni Hartofilaka, waiting to take her €60 out of an Alpha Bank branch. “We’re happy for the Europeans to learn not to be on top of us.” “We’re all happy with Tsipras!” said Eleni Hartofilaka, waiting to take her €60 (about $67) out of an Alpha Bank branch. “We’re happy for the Europeans to learn not to be on top of us.”
Eleni Gardikioti, 31, an insurance worker, was discussing the crisis as she had coffee under leafy trees in the Utopia cafe in the Pangrati neighborhood with her colleague and boyfriend, Achilleas Sakellariou, 32. For some, the word “no,” or “Oxi” in Greek, has a historical symbolism that makes it even more appealing in the present context. As every Greek schoolchild knows, the annual Oxi Day commemorates the answer, in spirit if not verbatim, delivered by Prime Minister Ioannis Metaxas to a demand from Mussolini to allow Italian forces to occupy strategic parts of Greece at the beginning of World War II.
“Simply put, we’re confused,” Ms. Gardikioti said. “We don’t understand what games they are playing, whether to stay or go and whether there is a permanent goal in all that.” Ms. Gardikioti said that she and her boyfriend have limited savings and little to lose. Even if a no vote meant a retreat to the previous Greek currency, the drachma, after a period of hardship, the Greeks would recover.
There were good arguments on each side, she said as she fished out a coin to give to a beggar. At the Evangelismos Metro station near Central Athens, Dimitra Papaioannou, 30, had just taken a free subway ride, after coming to the city by bus from the northern town of Larissa to visit her doctor. She had arrived in Athens with almost no cash because the A.T.M.’s in her hometown had been bled dry.
She and Mr. Sakellariou said it was in their professional interest to remain on the euro. But on a broader social level, they said, they were motivated to vote no because they saw accepting the creditors’ demands as ushering in a period of pension cuts for older people and pay cuts for working people. She said she had not decided whether she would vote on Sunday, but if she did, she would vote no to the European bailout proposal. Unlike city folk, she could be self-sufficient, she said, rolling a cigarette.
“Let’s not sell out,” Ms. Gardikioti said. “I will go to the village and dig to live,” she said. “I believe no one should fear. Here in Athens, they will go hungry. In the village we have our field, a chicken. Of course, doctors we won’t have, or maybe.”
The young couple have limited savings and little to lose, they said. Even if a no vote meant a retreat to the previous Greek currency, the drachma, after a period of hardship, Mr. Sakellariou said, the Greeks would recover. A few blocks away, the A/B Vasilopoulos supermarket, a major chain, was mobbed, as though a major hurricane were on the way. A cashier said she was exhausted as she rang up groceries at lunchtime. “You should have seen it this morning,” she said.
“In two or three years, life will be better,” he said. Discounted Pampers were sold out, and people were forced to buy the more expensive version. Housewives were leaving with gigantic bundles of toilet paper. The cheapest brands of olive oil and pasta had sold out. Stock clerks were everywhere, replenishing supplies of everything from sugar to frozen vegetables.
Under the demands of their eurozone partners in recent years, Ms. Gardikioti said, Greeks have been plagued by unemployment, and it is common to see stores offering 80 percent discounts all year round, rather than just in August, as is customary. “Don’t panic,” one woman urged another, as she picked over the noodles. “I think the Greek companies like Misko will still be producing pasta even if we cannot import it.” Italian ravioli, she added, examining a package, maybe not.
“Such misery and pain never existed,” she said. Several people said that the general mood had become so distressed and polarized that people were talking about the possibility of civil war. Mr. Tsipras seemed to be alluding to such fears in his brief speech Sunday night announcing the capital controls. He urged “dignity” and “calm” and echoing Franklin Roosevelt, said “Our only fear is fear.”
Ms. Gardikioti said she also understood the emotional appeal of a no vote. “As a people, our history pulls us,” she said. At a small but elegant antiques store, Art & Craft, the proprietor, Miltiades Macrygiannis, actually had a customer, though, he noted after she left, she spoke Greek with an accent, indicating that she was foreign.
Surrounded by hanging lamps, carved mirrors, old worry beads and objects bearing the evil eye, to ward away evil, Mr. Macrygiannis said that like most businesses, he could not get cash to replenish his stock now that cash controls were in effect.
He planned to vote yes, but reluctantly, as the lesser of two bad choices. “I wouldn’t imagine, even as a nightmare, the scenario of going back to the drachma,” Mr. Macrygiannis said. “It would take 10 years to get us back on our feet again.”
On the other hand, “You can say yes to this agreement, a very painful agreement, and it means too many taxes, cutting down on pensions.”
Those who will gain, he said, are the superrich who have squirreled away their euros in Switzerland or the Virgin Islands, and will be able to swoop in to buy devalued goods and property.
What upset him most, he said, was the uncertainty. “The Greek government right now, they don’t give me the next day,” he said. “They ask us to vote no. Then at least tell me what is going to happen the day after.”
He added: “We fought to be in the European Union for so many years. Greece will not be in Europe but countries like Bulgaria and Romania will? It sounds like a bad joke.”